A New Dawn? The U.S. Experience in Nuclear Waste Disposal

The issue of what to do with U.S. high level waste remains unresolved.  Thirty years after passage of the original Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and twenty-five years after Congress amended it by selecting only one site for investigation, Yucca Mountain, Nevada, little tangible progress has been made.  In 2010, the Obama administration decided to abandon the Yucca Mountain license application in favor of consideration of a new course of action that would be less controversial than the Yucca Mountain plan.  In an effort to do this, the Obama White House established a Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.  This commission recently published its findings and recommendations on plans for the management and disposal of U.S. nuclear waste and the prospect of technological innovations that can help with this task.  This presentation will present a summary of the Blue Ribbon Commission’s report in the context of other nuclear waste projects in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The history of nuclear waste management in the United States is long and fraught with difficulty but not without its successes.  Though a solution to the problem of nuclear waste, including spent nuclear fuel from over 100 civilian reactors and high level wastes from the nuclear weapons complex, has yet to be found, the U.S. remains the only country with an operating deep geologic repository for transuranic wastes.  The Waste Isolation Pilot Project near Carlsbad, New Mexico, continues to receive local popular support, as well as cautious state approval. WIPP presents an interesting example of how a local community as well as state government can allow the siting of a geologic repository for radioactive waste.  Other examples cited will include those of Sweden, Finland, France, and Spain.